There is nothing to suggest that the little two-storey house in a southwest Edmonton field is made from four shipping containers.

It has exterior wood panelling, a back deck, a second-floor balcony and big picture windows, but the bones of the contemporary-design home are really four corrugated steel boxes usually seen stacked on trucks, rail cars or cargo ships.

Keeping their homes’ surprising origins under wraps is just how Sergio Torres and Chad Osman want it. The men are partners in Avante Global Trade, an Edmonton company that is turning shipping containers into housing, warehouses and even a 24-unit hotel in Mexico.

“They’ll arrive on site looking like just containers, but when it’s all put together, you’ll never be able to even tell that they were containers,” Osman said.

The 640-square-foot cottage in Windermere is the company’s demonstration model. It was assembled in four days with two or three workers using only a crane, wrench, caulking gun and drill. The pilot home would cost about $60,000.

Used shipping containers, which cost about $3,000-$4,000, can be stacked Lego-block style to create basic structures and even more upscale homes.

“The prices of houses are increasing dramatically and this is just a great solution,” Torres said. “This house can be assembled in just about one-tenth of the time of a standard house and the cost is about one-third. The structure without question is sturdier than a conventional home.”

With brightly painted walls, LED lights, heated floors, tiled bathrooms and an open staircase, the demo home feels more like a sleek getaway than a stack of shipping containers.

Torres said the shipping-box homes may not be a fit in all areas.

“There are a lot of restrictions in neighbourhoods that are already done. Student housing at the university should not be a problem. Lakes should not be an issue. Camps or reserves would be ideal.”

A 70-unit apartment complex made of containers has eased a housing crunch in the Eagle Ford Shale region of Texas. Other cargo-container housing projects in Canada include the CanStay Motel made of Sea-Cans in Estevan, Sask., and a women’s social-housing development in Vancouver made out of 12 recycled shipping containers.